RAMALLAH // Palestine’s fragile unity government split apart yesterday as the rift between rival camps in the West Bank and Gaza came to a head.
The prime minister Rami Hamdallah handed his resignation to the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, but Hamas officials in Gaza said no one had consulted them about the cabinet stepping down.
The Palestinian unity agreement in April last year sought to end seven years of rivalry between the Fatah administration in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, and a cabinet of technocrats from both sides took office.
But Mr Abbas is said to have been frustrated by Hamas’s refusal to allow the unity government to function in Gaza, and the dispute came to a head with reports that the militant group isnegotiating independently with Israel over ending the nine-year blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The president’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said yesterday the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s executive committee would hold a meeting next week to discuss forming a new national unity government.
But Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said it was a “one-sided change in the government without the agreement of all parties”.
“No one told us anything about any decision to change and no one consulted with us,” he said.
Riyad Al Malki, the foreign minister, said in Prague: “At the end of the day it’s not going to change our position when it comes to peace, and our commitment towards peace with Israel, our responsibility regionally and internationally fighting terrorism.”
A PLO official said Hamas’s indirect talks with Israel played a role in the collapse of the unity government.
“If you end up having a different kind of status for Gaza, then basically the idea of a Palestinian state completely disappears,” he said.
The talks are aimed at firming up the informal ceasefire that ended Israel’s 50-day war on Gaza last summer, and are said to have gone through a number of Arab and European channels.
Senior Hamas members met Qatari officials for discussions in Doha over the weekend.
They focused on key issues for Hamas such as ending Israel’s blockade and the establishment of a sea passage between Gaza and the outside world.
* Agence France-Presse